There are other ways you could do it but if you've been told how to implement the requirement too, there's not much point going into it. To answer your question...
Creating a process to make a Wix installer automatically is just the same as making any automated build. If you use Votive (Wix Visual Studio integration) to develop the installer, you will get a .wixproj which is an MSBuild project file and a solution file. You can either use the solution or project file and call devenv to compile it or you can call MSBuild directly. Your Wix source doesn't need to change - you'll just need to point your <Component> that contains the configuration file at the right file path using FileSource attribute of the <File> element. This can be hard coded, relative to some base path set in the light (link) stage, be an absolute path or be a pre-processor variable. See the wix help under "How To: Specify source files". If you use a hardcoded path, you'll need to add a pre-build step, or add a task into the wixproj file to move the configuration file to the right location based on a property that you pass to msbuild. Alternately, you could pass the location of the config file at build time. It depends on how youre creating the customer specific file. Your product code should be a hard coded guid rather than * so that you know what you released to the customer and can reproduce it or make upgrades, assuming you can track the config files somehow. Or just store a copy of each MSI produced. The Wix help has sections on creating builds that will help so do have a look in there. -----Original Message----- From: Greg Deward [mailto:greg.dew...@gmail.com] Sent: 29 January 2013 12:44 To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Advice Needed / Package Custom Config File Unfortunately, based on our current requirements, we must not prompt the user in any way nor may we require them to download a second file. Our client has requested that certain customer-specific variables be known by the application during install. The application must supply these variables to the servers when making any web service or restful call to the back end. This is why generating the MSI is so necessary. I hope this helps. Thanks for taking the time to reply. - Greg On Jan 29, 2013, at 7:25 AM, Peter Shirtcliffe <pshirtcli...@sdl.com> wrote: > If your MSI packages are always the same apart from that single > configuration file, one way to do it would be to exclude file from the > MSI. Then create a single, static MSI and let the application download > the config file at runtime and configure itself, if it hasn't already done so. > > This would be particularly advisable if your config could change > during the installed lifetime of the MSI, but less necessary if it > never changes. It would greatly simplify building and maintenance of > the MSI and allow user changes to be made to the config. MSI is much > easier to manage when installing unchanging resources and it would be > a lot simpler for you if there is only one MSI for all users. > > Whether this is a reasonable solution depends on the constraints of > the target environments. If this doesn't help, perhaps you could > elaborate on that aspect. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Greg Deward [mailto:greg.dew...@gmail.com] > Sent: 29 January 2013 12:08 > To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net > Subject: [WiX-users] Advice Needed / Package Custom Config File > > Is it possible to use Wix to programmatically create an MSI Installer > using a background process and an existing file structure? I would > like to embed a customized configuration file within their downloadable installation package. > I have never used Wix so any links to code or samples, demonstrating > this ability, would be greatly appreciated. > > Thank you, in advance. > > - G. Deward > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > ------- > - > Master Visual Studio, SharePoint, SQL, ASP.NET, C# 2012, HTML5, CSS, > MVC, Windows 8 Apps, JavaScript and much more. Keep your skills > current with LearnDevNow - 3,200 step-by-step video tutorials by > Microsoft MVPs and experts. ON SALE this month only -- learn more at: > http://p.sf.net/sfu/learnnow-d2d > _______________________________________________ > WiX-users mailing list > WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users > SDL PLC confidential, all rights reserved. > If you are not the intended recipient of this mail SDL requests and requires that you delete it without acting upon or copying any of its contents, and we further request that you advise us. > SDL PLC is a public limited company registered in England and Wales. 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